


Bacteriology

by cribbins



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 12:10:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/212642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cribbins/pseuds/cribbins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murray, an orderly, was already at the hospital by the time I arrived and was examining the paper. I bade him a good morning. Murray, never one for the finer points in social etiquette, merely held up the front page of the <i>Aldershot Military Gazette</i>.</p><p>“Men from Mars”, he intoned ominously.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water._

 _War of the Worlds_ , Chapter 1

 

Being a reprint from the reminiscences of

JOHN H. WATSON M.D.

late of the Royal Army Medical Corps

 

 

I returned to England in the spring of 1900, having just completed my first tour of duty in Sudan as an assistant surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps. The Sudanese climate had left me a thinner, darker version of myself but I had emerged relatively unscathed, though indeed disabused of some of my loftier thoughts on warfare.

 

Having neither kith nor kin in the country on which I could devote my leave, I found myself travelling to London with the idea of deciding where to go from there. I never managed to come to a decision however, and I spent my leave enjoying a hotel I could hardly afford, throwing more money than I ought on distracting entertainments, which meant I could afford my hotel even less. The week before I resumed my duties I had resorted to aimlessly milling about the city during the day, one of the few activities left to me of which I could meet the expense.

 

My credit nearly run out, I was relieved to return to Aldershot where I set myself up in lodgings in North Camp. I had been charged with overseeing the health and wellbeing of several hundred soldiers at Cambridge Military Hospital, and I expected to spend the foreseeable future in the relative safety and dullness of England. With the benefit of hindsight this may amuse the more ironically-minded reader. However, although I can be a fanciful man, what was to happen in the following days were beyond even the outer reaches of my imagination.

 

Upon my return I busied myself at the hospital, using my free time to catch up with all the recent medical literature. After having spent a long winter of living as a roving soldier in Africa I whole-heartedly threw myself back into the everyday routines of a hospital surgeon. Thus it was that the first mentions and rumours of the falling star landing at Horsell Common, these first few intimations that would have alerted a more observant man, completely passed me by.

 

It was early on an already warm Saturday morning when I first became aware of the Martians of Woking. It was not ten miles from Aldershot and yet I had spent a day and a night in a state of total ignorance. I exited my front door, still half asleep, whereupon something hot and grey landed on my forehead. I plucked it off and examined it, discovering it was a burnt, ashy piece of grass, carried by some imperceptible breeze. Looking up I saw that the air was full of these flakes of ash and fragments of smouldered grass, and that the extraordinary quality of the light (for I now realised that it was far too late in the morning for the sun to still have such a red hue) was caused by a column of smoke from the north cutting a path across the sun. The light had the character of a winter sunset rather than a cheerful May morning. Another fire on the commons, I thought. I huffed my irritation at the idea of having to carry out the day’s duties in such an oppressive atmosphere.

 

Murray, an orderly, was already at the hospital by the time I arrived and was examining the local paper. I bade him a good morning. Murray, never one for the finer points in social etiquette, merely held up the front page of the _Aldershot Military Gazette._

 __

 _“_ Men from Mars”, he intoned, ominously.

 

“What the devil do you mean?” I reached for the paper which was proffered to me. “By Jove.” I muttered, scanning the front page. “In Horsell Common! Not half an hour’s ride from here.”

 

“They’ve sent a few companies up to cordon them off. I was knocked up a few hours ago, what with all the commotion.” He shook his head disbelievingly. “I found out what I could but nobody knows much, so I got that paper and headed up here to read. No no, I’ve read it all.” He held up a hand as I tried to pass the paper back.

 

Sergeant William Murray was a large, dark-haired man in his late thirties whom I had inherited from my predecessor. He seemed to know every man stationed in the town and spoke to them all with a familiarity that belied his unremarkable rank. His seniority in age and experience made him invaluable to me, and perhaps we were too much like equals than I ought to have let happen.

 

“Still, it doesn’t sound as if they pose too much of a threat.” I said, returning to look at the inside pages. “They’re heavy and slow and trapped in their own crater. I’m surprised they sent as many men as they did.”

 

“Well the word is that that they killed the whole crowd of bystanders last night. Some kind of heat weapon. It set the common on fire.” He gestured out the window, where the smoke from the north continued to plume lazily into the sky.

 

“My god, is that what that is?” I peered in the direction of Woking.

 

Murray shook his head once more. “Men from Mars. The world’s gone mad.”

 

The rest of the day was spent in a flurry of agitation and unease. A rumour, repeated around the ward until it became reported as fact, was that a second falling star, a second cylinder, had fallen at the Byfleet Golf Links. We went about our day’s activities, hearing reports and hearsay of more troops being sent north – Hussars, Maxims, four hundred men from the Cardigan Regiment. There were reports of civilians starting to travel southwards, coming into Aldershot along the Farnborough Road and passing through towards Farnham.

 

We were not called up that day. At the end of my shift I was nominated by two other surgeons in my squadron to go across town to see our battalion’s commanding officer. The Colonel’s office was a hive of unfocused activity. Officers, most of them of higher rank than me, stood in groups discussing, poring over papers. Occasionally another man would run in with reports from Woking.

 

“Watson!” Colonel Atkinson bellowed over the heads of three officers staring intently at a map. “What do you want?”

 

“I’ve been sent to find out the latest, sir. We are all in the dark, downstairs.”

 

“I’m not much better than you. All we have are conflicting reports and fanciful imaginings from some overexcited artillerymen.” He lifted papers off his desk with a look of despair. “Ridiculous stories of machines with legs. It’s a shambles, an utter shambles.” He looked back at me. “I’ve heard nothing of your squadron being moved out. You will undoubtedly hear about it if it is.” Atkinson waved a dismissive hand at me. “Now get out of my office, you are getting in the way.”

 

The gunfire from Woking started as I made my way back to my lodgings and continued throughout the night. I did not sleep a wink, but rather sat in my living room with a scotch, listening intently. A storm broke out in the evening, moving in so quickly and with such ferocity that I battled with suspicions that it could not be natural. I could not help but notice that the noise of the thunder and the artillery fire were entwined with the colossal snoring of my landlord, who had been graced with either stronger nerves or weaker hearing than myself.

 

Sunday was fine and bright after the night’s vicious storm, though the tension in the town had reached a feverish pitch. Alarming communiqués arrived from the front throughout the morning and the trickle of people travelling south had become a flood. The road from Farnborough was crushed with people and horses. Some had only bags on their backs while others were better prepared and had packed their valuables onto carts. The air of panic, however, was universal. I stood by the side of the road, which I would somehow have to cross to get to the hospital, watching in wonder at the tide of humanity that cascaded through.

 

As for the military town itself, I found it almost deserted. Battalions had been called up during the night and dispatched north. I had arrived at the hospital early and dressed for combat rather than hospital duties, and I was gratified to see that Murray had done similarly. I assumed that if we had not been called into action yet then we would be shortly. This turned out not to be the case; some time in the early morning all lines of communication had been cut between Aldershot and the front. The last few reports had been of heavy losses and of the front line moving east as the Martians made towards the direction of London, before the telegrams had quite suddenly stopped.

 

Around midday, after no orders had arrived by messenger on horseback or otherwise, the little command that remained in Aldershot made the decision to move the final remaining battalions northwards towards the battle. We packed ourselves into a commandeered train at North Camp Station and headed towards Guildford.

 

Although windows were opened immediately, we were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in a second-class passenger carriage and our numbers ensured that the atmosphere was close and the smell high. Murray and I stood among our squadron, which included three surgeons, McCleavy, Chilcott and Groundsell and four other orderlies, Tuckfield, Walker, Hall and Lewis. I stood in the isle next to a group of four young officers sitting at a table. Two of them laughed loudly in an excellent show of bravado. The carriage was filled with urgent chatter though more than few of the men were unnaturally quiet. I remembered what Atkinson had said to me the day before, ‘machines on legs’, and I could not help but feel the shared sense of dread.

 

The afternoon wore on as the train made its slow and halting progress towards London, passing through meadow and woodland, the sky a hot, deep blue. Occasionally, the horizon stretched before us and we could see vast fires raging in the distance. These were entire villages and towns which had been wiped out, the blazes left unattended while the survivors fled. Steadily, the whole carriage became subdued and silent.

From Waterloo, we changed tracks and made our way west, towards the heart of the fighting. We pulled up in Wimbledon station as the sun began to set. The sky was by now gold and red, with streaks of pink cloud; a beautiful evening, but not a peaceful one, for the whole town was as still and tense as a held breath. The medical squadron were led towards the far side of Wimbledon Common, past the artillery, where the medical corps had erected a hospital tent. They were chiefly treating people who had escaped from Weybridge and Shepperton. All these patients were suffering burns to some degree, many of them horrific.

 

We reported ourselves to the chief medical officer. He was red in the face and looked driven to distraction. The front of his white coat was stained dark red. “I’m grateful for any more men,” he said, “but I’m afraid that without supplies there is not much that you would be able to do.” We volunteered to free supplies from a local hospital and were thanked with almost embarrassing gratitude, before being pointed towards where we could find a wagon. One of the civilians was plucked from the crowd to direct us. He was a sensible, dour man with a long and drooping moustache. Readers must forgive me if I cannot remember much more of him.

 

Victoria Hospital was a grand, red brick building which stood darkly against the evening’s light. The windows were uniformly black, the door closed. All inhabitants had fled. Tuckfield solved the problem of the door with a well aimed boot to the lock. Once inside we lit the lamps and searched the floors for supply cupboards.

 

It was on the fourth floor when I looked out the window in the direction of Wimbledon Common. There was a little light left in the sky, green in the horizon, and the lamps of the artillery camp were now visible over the roofs of the houses. I grabbed Murray’s arm compulsively.

 

“Good God, Murray, look.”

 

I pointed towards the common, and to the three-legged creature which towered enormously over it. It was silhouetted against the dying light, huge and sleek. It seemed to be looking down at the artillery, who were, undoubtedly, looking back at it. Neither moved. I had heard vague talk of the creatures, but nothing, nothing could have prepared me for that moment of finally seeing them.

 

Chilcott and Hall were behind us. “By thunder,” Chilcott murmured under his breath. He squinted and adjusted his spectacles. “How large must it be?”

 

“At least one hundred feet tall.” I estimated. “Maybe more.”

 

The Martian howled, a terrible noise, somewhere between a fog-horn and a war cry:  “AH-LOO”, so loud it was that we could feel the vibrations of it from even that distance away. Thence it began to move. The legs stayed rooted but the cockpit changed angle and, lit by the torches and lamps below, I could see something stirring underneath.

 

A huge report sounded, shaking the very foundations of the hospital. I expected an explosion to follow, for flames and a battery of counter-fire, but there was nothing. The lights which had illuminated the Martians from below were extinguished. The western sky which had still at this hour been a lighter shade of blue from the rest of the night sky turned an inky black. We peered, and made out a mushrooming cloud of darkness reaching up into the sky where the common once stood. The silence was absolute. Murray very quietly uttered an oath.

 

Hall cried out and pointed towards the houses in the distance. We could see the incomplete darkness of the summer night being swallowed by the total blackness of the cloud. A fifty foot wall of thick, rolling gas careened silently towards us. It was a tsunami, I thought, wildly. A sandstorm.

 

“Up!” I exclaimed. “We must go upwards!”  I ran for the staircase, the others hot on my tail. We cried for the others.

 

“Upstairs!”

 

“Head up! If you want to live, head upwards!”

 

I thought only too late of the civilian whom we had enlisted to show us the way to the hospital, sitting outside with the wagon and horses, waiting for our return. I plunged onwards, reaching the attic rooms littered with old beds and dark, obsolete surgical equipment stacked on tables. I held my lamp aloft and stumbled to the window. The dark cloud had overtaken the hospital, but only rose to somewhere around fifteen feet below the window. The top of the building stuck up above the cloud like a stone in the midst of a river.

 

I turned to the rest of the squadron and with some alarm saw only three faces reflected in the lamp light, pale and breathless. We called for the others but heard no response. None of us cared to venture below into the smoke. We suspected it would be suicide to do so, but held hope that someone had survived below. We took turns to stand at the top of the stairs and call down, in vain hope.

 

We were stranded there, in our little island, until around three in the morning. Hall had paced the attic room and intermittently cursed. Chilcott mostly sat in a chair, shocked and staring. Murray would talk to him every so often, rousing a few words of response from him but nothing more. For the rest of the time he stood vigil with me, by the window. The silence of Wimbledon had altered in its character. It was no longer the nervous silence, waiting for the hammer blow, but oppressively lonely, as though we were the only four men left in the entire town.

 

The sky lightened in the east, and the quality of the smoke became easier to study, for it was smoke, or something like it. For a time I thought it liquid, but wisps would break free when it hit the wall of the hospital and roll backwards, sinking again into the morass.

 

The Martian machine approached Wimbledon again in the early dawn. It too was easier to study in the morning light – its metallic sheen quite at odds with the rolling, organic movements of its three legs. It strode through the town, spraying what looked like steam from a nozzle hanging underneath the cockpit. As the steam hit the black smoke, the smoke would dissipate into dust. It passed the hospital; the four of us held ourselves against the wall, out of sight as it clanked and hooted not twenty feet away. I recall shutting my eyes tight, clenching my fists and willing the thing to continue on its way, wondering if it could sense our presence here in the dark attic.

 

The window shattered inwards, propelled by a jet of steam that shot twenty feet into the room, knocking over tables and instantly rendering the air opaque and scalding. If we cried out the noise was drowned by the roar of the jet and the smashing of glass as the steam passed across the front of the hospital.

 

I crouched, covering my head until the atmosphere calmed and the noise abated. The Martian machine passed and headed north. As I stood up, tiny fragments of glass were disturbed from my clothes and fell tinkling to the floor. I found I was quite unable to make out anything much further than my hand in front of my face; the room was shrouded in white mist, like a Turkish bath, the air almost too hot to breathe.

 

“Hallo?” The gruff, disembodied voice of Hall sounded in the mist. “Are we all still here?”

 

“We should get out of this room.” Chilcott’s quiet but thankfully steady voice answered him.

 

“I agree,” I said, “but where the devil is the door?” I felt out in front of me and almost tripped over a bedframe. I realised I had not heard the voice of the other orderly. “Murray?”

 

“Here.” A hand grabbed my arm above the elbow, at first panicking me, for everything was unexpected in this white gloom. But then, seeing the shadow of his outline through the steam, I found I was rather comforted by his presence. “I can’t see a bleeding thing.” He whispered apologetically.

 

The mist cleared somewhat, rushing out through the empty window frames, and we were able to negotiate our way down the staircase and onto the floor below, walls and floor coated in a fine, black dust. We took the precaution of tying handkerchiefs over our faces. We found Tuckfield, lying not far away from the stairs, not immediately distinguishable as he was as black as the floor and the air was still thick with steam. Chilcott crouched next to him and turned him onto his back. He had suffered in the moments before his death. Chilcott and I agreed that it was likely that the black smoke had been poisonous, and this had been what killed poor Tuckfield, rather than suffocation.

 

After this first discovery, we had the grim job of searching out the rest of our squadron. We accounted for them, all quite dead. Outside the hospital (the town had become absolutely quiet) was our wagon, with the civilian still in the driver’s seat and the two horses harnessed to the front. They looked as if all had died instantly.

 

“It has been a massacre,” said Chilcott in that same quiet voice.

 

“We must go to London.” I announced, suddenly.

 

“What on earth for?” Chilcott studied me. “You mean to chase after these things?” He exclaimed, “Watson, we are being _massacred_. What good would following them to London do?”

 

I turned to face him. “If they go to London then they shall take the black smoke with them. Who will warn them of what happened here, Chilcott? I cannot see any other survivors.”

 

Chilcott drew himself up to his full and not inconsiderable height. “Then how, _exactly_ , do you plan to get to London before them?”

 

While I admitted to myself that I had yet to think of an answer to this, I was loathe giving Chilcott the satisfaction of saying it out loud.

 

 “There’s a motor car.”

 

We both looked at Hall, who pointed in the direction of the common. “I saw a motor car on the common last night.”

 

The tops of the trees were still a vivid green in the dim, pre-dawn light, and they stood starkly against the dusty darkness of the rest of Wimbledon Common. We emerged through a thicket and found what was only describable as a graveyard. Thousands of bodies lay still on the ground, machinery and artillery stood quietly beside them, guns loaded but never fired. I find it quite impossible to describe the terrible silence, interrupted rudely by our crashing entrance through the brush. All four of our party were veterans of combat, and had witnessed, being medical men, the very worst and ugliest of the battlefield, but I am not ashamed to admit that every one of us were stunned.

 

The car was found behind an artillery gun; the driver removed from behind the wheel and laid gently onto the floor. When the engine was turned on the noise was startling. A flock of starlings took wing from one of the higher treetops.

 

“We’ll be the loudest thing for miles around.” Hall did not elaborate, but indeed he did not need to. Murray settled himself behind the wheel and very slowly weaved the car across the common and onto the Great West Road to London.

 

I sat in the back seat with Chilcott. At one point he hissed, “Look,” and gestured towards the north, where our Martian machine strode towards us, some miles in the distance. It bellowed, “OOOH-LA”, at a volume which made our very bones tremble. We pulled to the side of the road under the cover of trees and quit the engine, and it passed without incident.

 

Richmond was as blackened and quiet as Wimbledon had been, and once we came to Chiswick we found that our warnings would be both unheeded and useless. The town was in a hysterical panic, the populace fleeing the giants they could see silhouetted against the sky to the east. The roads were thick with people, jostling, shoving, all pretentions of civility stripped away. We were soon forced to abandon the car to make our way through the shrieking, cursing mob, towards the centre of the city.

 

“Make way!”

 

“Move out of my way!”

 

Occasionally a voice would rise out of the din; yell “They are coming! They are coming!” The crowd would surge forwards with a terrible scream. People would be pressed against the carts and walls of houses with nowhere else for their bodies to fit. It was some twenty minutes after we were swept along with the crowd when I saw a man practically throwing women and children out of his way as he muscled forwards. I placed a hand on my revolver and attempted to make my way to him, squeezing past bodies and slipping through gaps in the crowd. I saw him plant two hands against a young woman’s back and pushed her forward. She tripped and disappeared under the sea of heads. He strode forwards, over the space she had occupied previously. I did not see her re-emerge.

 

I struggled towards that spot and found her lying, crushed by the people who could not see her until they were upon her, and did not stay to help. As carefully and quickly as I could I scooped her into my arms and made for the side of the road, towards a tall hedge punctured by a wicket gate. I kicked the gate open and laid my new patient on the front lawn beyond, then catalogued her injuries; a broken arm, most probably several ribs also, and I noticed bleeding from the nose and evidence of a sharp kick to the head. Her breathing was laboured and her consciousness quickly fading. I folded my jacket under her head as a pillow.

 

“You shall be needing some splints, then?” I heard the familiar voice behind me and was beyond gratified to see Murray standing there. “I saw him too, the brute. I had a mind to shove him under a cart wheel myself.”

 

I confirmed that I would need splints. I feared that the lady’s breathing was impaired by a crushed rib, thus I removed her shirt and undid her corset. Through her undershirt I was able to feel her ribcage more freely. Alas I found it terribly crushed. It was then that I realised that I did not have the means of saving the poor woman’s life. I gave her morphine, and Murray and I sat with her for an hour and a half while her life slipped away from her.

 

When we re-emerged onto the road, by then morning had truly arrived, we found the path near deserted. There were stragglers, like us, and the road was littered with dropped possessions and, occasionally, the body of a poor soul like our lady, whom had the misfortune of losing their footing and being crushed by the stampede.

 

Papers fluttered through the debris, one of which I grabbed as it flitted past and examined. It was a special edition of the _Chiswick Times_ , which must have been printed in the very early hours of the morning. It contained a statement from the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army. The words are ubiquitous to any who lived in the South East at that time, but I shall include it for the sake of comprehensiveness:

  
 _The Martians are able to discharge enormous clouds of a black and poisonous vapour by means of rockets. They have smothered our batteries, destroyed Richmond, Kingston, and Wimbledon, and are advancing slowly towards London, destroying everything on the way. It is impossible to stop them. There is no safety from the Black Smoke but in instant flight._

 

Thus it was revealed to us that we were not the only witnesses of the black smoke, and that others were, either by luck or efficiency, able to spread the word a good deal quicker than us. I sighed; of course, it was foolish to think that people would be in ignorance.

 

Murray read over my shoulder. “It doesn’t say anything about going upwards, does it?” Murray was frowning at the paper. I re-read the statement and this second time realised that there was no mention of the possibility of out-climbing the smoke, which reached a maximum height of around fifty feet.

 

“Perhaps they don’t know.” I said. I imagined that they had not heard of survivors from within the smoke’s reach. It seemed that we were still duty-bound to travel into London, and impart what we knew to the Commander-in-Chief.

 

The city centre was desolate. We found Horse Guards abandoned, the headquarters of the British Army had already evacuated. We thence travelled to Fleet Street but found it equally empty. A few people remained, though all were much too hurried to stop, and none would wait to answer a question, heedless even of our uniforms.

 

I found myself at quite a loss as to what to do. Head north-eastwards, I supposed, with the rest of humanity. Near London Bridge I looked to Murray to ask if he had any ideas but found his eyes fixed upon the Thames. I followed his gaze and saw innumerable detritus floating downstream. A chill ran through me when I realised on closer inspection that the dark shapes floating on the water’s surface were bodies of men, women and children. Occasionally, here and there, a horse; its legs rigid in death. They were accompanied by a swirling black silt which was left over from the black smoke. As my eyes followed the river upstream I caught a glimpse of the black cloud, bellowing enormously.

 

Murray and I sheltered in the topmost floor of a tall townhouse. We were in servants’ quarters this time, sat on a narrow cast iron bed and gazing at other rooftops which rose above the waves of the smoke. We talked little, neither of us sure how to proceed.

 

“It seems that they are moving methodically, east to west,” I said, after pondering in silence. “This is a military campaign, rather than a rampage.”

 

“Yes, I suppose so.” Murray nodded. “Though I cannot see how that particularly benefits us.”

 

“Well, it strikes me that the best way one can avoid this hellish smoke would be to stay in a place where they have already used it.”

 

Murray thought upon it, then nodded. “We could wait for them to go east, and then head west. We could go to Wales, maybe?” 

 

I tilted my head, conceding my agreement. “But we should first focus on the problem of how to get out the capital alive.” I sighed, disconsolately. “Perhaps it is time to concede that Chilcott was right.”

 

Murray snorted. “Chilcott is an ass.”

 

“What help has it been for us to travel into London, apart from put us once again in the most horrible danger? I have been singularly useless. We have saved no-one.”

 

“We did our duty.” Murray reprimanded me. “I can hardly see how we could have done more.”

 

It is difficult to think what my mental state was at that time. After that moment of self-pity, I attempted to quash the sense of the overwhelming hopelessness of our position to the back of my mind, and instead dedicated my thoughts solely on how to extricate ourselves from our present situation. I worked it over in my brain incessantly, if not successfully.

 

The Martian tripods passed through in the mid-afternoon, clearing the smoke with jets of steam. We waited a further half an hour before we emerged onto the blackened street, and through small alleys and side streets made our way westwards, towards the direction of Embankment. On Cheapside we encountered people who were heading in the opposite direction. Two men and three women scurried in a huddled group on the opposite side of the road. One of the party noticed us, checked the skyline for any sign of the Martian machines, then crossed the road to greet us, weaving past an upturned dogcart with a broken wheel.

 

“Why are you heading west? Where are the army? Do you know anything?” He was a tall man with a dark beard and a knotted brow. He would have been a commanding character in different circumstances, I supposed, but he wrung his hands fretfully and looked at us with wide, staring eyes.

 

“I’m afraid we know as little as you. We do not know where the army is; we are the last of our regiment. We head west because we suppose that the Martians will head east.” I answered him as best I could, though I supposed my answers to be entirely unsatisfactory.

 

Instead he looked eastwards, then westwards, as if trying to see the movements of the Martians and the rest of the population, then nodded. “Yes, I suppose that would make sense, wouldn’t it. The Martians have already overtaken us. If we could move west…” He trailed off for a moment. “Perhaps we could catch a ship to Ireland, or America,” he said thoughtfully. He gestured for his companions to join us. “A change of plan,” he announced, “we will join these gentlemen and head west.” He explained his plan of ultimately catching a ship to America and, though the others looked on doubtfully, nobody objected.

 

Thus our party had grown to seven members. It was to be short-lived, as with a thrill of terror I saw a Martian loom over the rooftops of Cheapside. It did not pass overhead, but rather looked straight down, at us. I felt, rather than saw the cool gaze of the Martian upon me and I felt horror as I had never known it. I am not certain who cried out, it may even have been myself, but we were galvanised by it and broke into a run. I followed Murray towards a side street and the others headed onwards down Cheapside. Two of the women let out shrieks of distress or pain which cut off, suddenly. Risking to look, all I saw of them were two smouldering black bodies. The air about us shimmered with heat.

 

I would later learn that this was the ‘heat ray’ that was talked of in Woking: heat which was focused and shot out like a bullet from a gun. At the time I merely knew that they had been killed, and I was to follow them shortly. The ray passed across the upturned dogcart, and such was the power of the heat that the cart exploded as if filled with gunpowder. I cannot remember this; I was told of it later by Murray. Shards of wood and metal flew forth from the blast. One of them lodged into the back of my right thigh. The other passed through my shoulder.

 

Murray, I later learned, carried me into a side street and thence into an alley where we waited for the Martian tripod to pass over. “I didn’t have much choice, Captain, for you were right behind me and fell on top of me when it happened.” He had smiled at me when he told me this, and it was easy to see he was attempting to play down the immense bravery of the act. The Martian followed the other members of our ill-fated group. Murray believed that all were killed.

 

He applied field dressings to my leg and shoulder and, looping my good arm about his neck, he carried me to Watling Street and onto Cannon Street. He led me into St Paul’s Cathedral through the open door of the South Transept, down into the crypt, where I was finally allowed to collapse onto the floor next to Nelson’s Tomb.

 

This was where I came to, the following day. I had Murray’s jacket rolled up under my head and my arm had been firmly pinned to my chest with a sling. It ached abominably; so much so that only when I shifted position did I noticed the keen pain in my leg. With some labour I pulled myself into a sitting position, resting my back against a column. I sat in a pool of sickly yellow light, thrown out by a single oil lamp sat on the floor next to me, next to my pack and my holster, with its revolver tucked inside. All beyond the lamp’s reach was gloom.

 

Footsteps echoed through the crypt as someone came down the stairs.

 

“Hallo, what’s this? Awake, are we?” Murray emerged into the light of the lamp, looking weary and shaken.

 

“What happened? I don’t, I’m afraid...”

 

“You took shrapnel, old man. One passed right through your shoulder. Must have nicked an artery. You lost a good amount of blood.” He handed me a flask of water which I accepted gratefully. “You had me worried for a moment, there.”

 

I looked at my leg, the material ripped open and the thigh bandaged. “And my leg?”

 

“Two inch shard of iron. I’ve removed it. It isn’t as bad as your shoulder but you might have a limp.” He came forward and pulled aside my shirt to check the bandages on my shoulder. “It’s an orderly’s handiwork, I’m afraid” he said with an apology.

 

“Without which I would not have survived. I owe you my life, Murray.”

 

He smiled, pleased at this, and sat down opposite me, leaning against the base of Nelson’s tomb. His face was a picture of exhaustion, and he rubbed a hand across his eyes before resting his chin on his palm. After a moment he looked troubled by something, and held the hand he rested on in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I could see that it trembled.

 

“Have you had any sleep?” I asked.

 

“A couple of hours, but…” He clenched and opened his hand a couple of times, then shook it, as if he were trying to ease cramp. “…clearly not enough.” He looked sheepish. “To tell the truth I find I can’t rest. There’s too much danger for me to let my guard down enough to sleep. After I treated your wounds I was so tired I couldn’t stop myself, but since then…” He shook his head.

 

I nodded, understanding. It was a common enough condition in soldiers who had seen a particularly long or fearsome battle. “Are we in St Paul’s crypt?”

 

Murray nodded.

 

“Then we are near Bart’s. I will need fresh bandages and antiseptic. There will probably be food there, and god forgive me for indulging myself but a proper bed as well.” I was too weak to move, and under more normal circumstances I would not have attempted it, but I knew that time was of the essence and perhaps having so soon regained consciousness I had not fully absorbed the severity of my injuries. I made an unsuccessful attempt to stand and was rewarded with almost instant collapse.

 

“Perhaps we should wait until you have regained your strength a bit, and I’ve found you a crutch.” Murray eased me back into a laying position and tucked his jacket once more under my head. “Tomorrow, maybe.”

 

He left the crypt for an hour or more. It was difficult to tell how much time passed in the perpetual gloom. He returned with a loaf of bread, some apples, and a walking stick with a silver handle. “I found it in the lobby of the church. Amazing what people will leave behind.” He rested it beside me. “You need a crutch really, but this will get you to Bart’s, hopefully.”

 

We devoured the food in hungry silence, then Murray told me what had happened at Cheapside. I did not ask where he found the food, though later believed he had raided the restaurants lining St Paul’s Square before scurrying back to the safety of the crypt. We talked vaguely of plans for the following day, and then what we would do once we could make our escape of London. Eventually, exhaustion took me and I slipped into a fitful sleep.

 

I woke up feeling a good deal sorer; my shoulder burned and itched. I was uncomfortably hot, and I felt a sheen of perspiration on my brow. In spite of all Murray’s efforts, the wound in my shoulder had become infected. Waiting until I regained some of my strength would no longer be an option. I would have to somehow make the journey to Bart’s before the fever progressed any further.

 

Murray was absent, and I had no clue as to when he would return. I levered myself upright with the aid of the walking stick, one arm braced against the column, whereupon the most almighty shudder passed through the crypt. Stone dust was disturbed from the vaulted ceiling and billowed downwards. My mind flew to the most obvious explanation: that the Martian machines were upon Ludgate Hill and were wreaking destruction, perhaps on the cathedral itself. Another enormous impact shook the crypt, followed by the echoing cry of the Martians, that terrible ‘OOOH-LA’.

 

I froze, unsure whether to stay put or whether to flee. Remembering that Murray was above ground and unaccounted for, I hobbled to the foot of the stairs, straining my ears to hear any sign of him above. Hearing nothing, and maddened by the not knowing, I threw on Murray’s jacket, tucked my revolver into my trouser pocket and pulled myself up the stairs to the entrance to the crypt, enclosed by enormous cast-iron railings. The church looked unmolested, though candlesticks had toppled over and dust swirled in the air. The light was a brilliant orange, and I took it for either sunrise or sunset. I fumbled for the latch on the gates when I heard the slap of running feet against marble and Murray burst through the west doorway, crying “Captain! Captain, back in the crypt!” He ran as if he were chased by all the hounds of hell.

 

A final cry of the Martians reverberated through the cathedral, so close to be practically on top of us, and the north-west corner of the Nave burst inwards. Enormous chunks of stone pelted the iron railings I crouched behind, while smaller pieces flew through the railings and stung my arms and head. After the last of the stone clattered to a halt there followed a complete silence, punctuated only by a high-pitched whining noise. I took a chance to peer above the mound of boulders piled against the railings. There was a gaping split in the cathedral wall, where St Dunstan’s chapel had once been. And filling the void, against the dark sky stood the Martian tripod. It stooped to fit in the opening, its body sinking below the joints of its three legs, a demonic spider. Its body continued to lower as it made its way inside the cathedral, until it squatted a mere few feet above the floor. I saw then that it squatted over something which wriggled and writhed in the rubble. Murray’s leg was crushed under an enormous white boulder of Portland stone, pinning him to the floor. He twisted his body to look at me, turning himself over to scratch at the floor with his fingernails. I could not hear anything except the persistent whining sound, but I saw his mouth shape into howls of terror. I can only presume that he was screaming for me.

 

The glass shield at the bottom of the machine’s cockpit slid open, and something awful, formless and brown slipped partially out, objects like squids’ tentacles dangled from the aperture. Murray twisted onto his back once more to face the beast; he grabbed hold of a smaller piece of stone and hurled it at the Martian, which reared back, surprised. I could have cried out in triumph, it was a direct hit. My cry would have died quickly in my throat, however. The Martian inside the machine produced a thin, silvery tube. Lowering itself once more, it plunged the tube into Murray’s chest.

 

I am afraid that my narrative, at this point, becomes rather vague. I may have watched, unable to tear myself away, or I may have covered my face in horror. Either way, to this day I have no real memory of it. One may find information on the feeding habits of Martians in the works of several eminent zoologists if one wishes, but I will not elaborate on them here. In fact I suspect that I have deliberately forgotten the details of this act in an unconscious effort to preserve what was left of my own mental equilibrium, and I do not wish to test the limits of these barriers I have erected in my own mind.

 

Thus I cannot accurately recall how much time passed between the Martian leaving and myself emerging from the gate to the crypt. My memory of events returns at the point where I made my way falteringly through the nave of the cathedral towards Murray’s body, avoiding the largest of the rubble and trying to find steady purchase for my walking stick.

 

Murray’s body was as skeletal and desiccated as the preserved mummies in the British Museum. His arms were contorted inwards, his head thrown back, mouth open. The only difference were the eyes, which were still bright and staring. I lowered myself onto one knee and closed his eyelids. I considered burial, but he was pinned to the spot by a lump of stone the height of my chest, and I quickly realised that I had not the strength to cover what remained of him with more stone. Thus I was forced to leave him there. I shrugged off his jacket and lay it across his face, and exited the cathedral by the door in the north transept.

 

The orange light which I had taken to be the sun was in fact an enormous blaze. Ludgate Hill was on fire, quite peaceably burning with no residents or fire brigade to attempt to put out the flames, indeed no witnesses except for myself. As I walked, slowly and haltingly, along Edward Street, the ash fell as thickly as snow, colouring the blackened streets a whitish grey. The peace was temporarily broken as an enormous crack rent through the air. I span, terrified. I had dropped my walking stick and drawn my revolver, aiming it upwards, towards an empty building before I finally presumed the noise was timber splitting and breaking in the heat of the fire.

 

I approached St Bartholomew’s Hospital from the south, crossing the courtyard to the west wing, which I knew would have an abundant amount of the supplies I needed, fresh bandages and antiseptics. I planned to rest here as well, as I could not see how I could carry on much longer. My fever was taking hold now: I shook, despite the heat, and I was coated in perspiration. In the courtyard I came across another blackened body. I squinted at his face, thinking that it looked familiar. It may have even been someone whom I had studied with back when I had trained here as a surgeon.

 

The corridors of St Bartholomew’s were long and for the most part quite dark, except where the fires of Ludgate Hill glowed through the tall windows and flickered against the whitewashed walls and dun-coloured doors. My uneven footsteps echoed abominably, and I imagined that any Martian in London could quite clearly mark my progress through that empty building. These thoughts were playing upon my mind when I heard a scrape and a clatter from further down the hall. I could not hold my revolver and move myself forward with the walking stick at the same time, so I quietened my footsteps as much as I was capable, and crept towards the source of the sound.

 

I found the door of a chemical lab opened, and when I looked into the room I discovered a bright lamp set upon a table and a man buried up to the waist in a low cupboard. I rested my walking stick against the wall and propped myself against the doorframe. I was not in a generous state of mind, and although the source of the noise proved to be a human being, this did not mean he was to be trusted.

 

The top half of the man’s body emerged from the cupboard holding a glass tube that was twisted into a series of tight turns, some complex piece of chemical equipment. He gazed at it triumphantly: “I’ve found it! I’ve found it.”

 

I did not know whether he had addressed me, or merely himself, but I raised the revolver and snapped off the safety catch. The sharp turn of his head and the flicker of surprise which passed over his face confirmed that I had taken him unawares.

 

He was a tall man, dark haired and very thin, wearing a coat which was frayed and ripped and terribly stained. His face was marked and dirty and his eyes were a pale colour, though impossible to tell which shade in the yellow light of the lamp; they looked keen and interested, though there was a hint of barely-suppressed alarm in his expression.

 

We held in that tableau for a few seconds before the man spoke once more. “I have been searching for this damnable piece of glass through the whole building. You have the luck of chancing upon me in a moment of success. Most of my equipment was destroyed along with my apartments so I have been borrowing pieces from here. I have been trying to analyse the chemical composition of the black dust.” He gestured to a box on the floor beside him, filled with carefully wrapped bundles of what I presumed were glassware.

 

“Please, permit me to introduce myself, my name is…” he took a step towards me at this point, to which I stepped back and signalled with my gun for him to stay exactly where he was. I attempted to say something to that effect but found the words stuck in my throat.

 

“Sherlock Holmes,” he finished, somewhat warily. I continued to aim the gun at him, though my hand shook terribly. An inner voice of reason told me that the man in front of me was unlikely to mean me any harm; that although he was stealing it was justifiable in the exceptional circumstances, if he was genuinely conducting tests on the black smoke, and that I should probably be lowering the gun away from his head. Even so, I found that I had been gripped by an overwhelming sense of panic, of which I could not find a direct and immediate source. I could not lower my arm.

 

The man, Sherlock Holmes, took a deep breath and gave me a penetrating stare. “You are in the Royal Army Medical Corps, I see. I should guess a Captain. The nearest RAMC regiment is stationed in Aldershot, which means that you must have continued to travel into London after the army dissolved and fled to the coast. The cuts to your face and the covering of stone dust have only happened in the last couple of hours, but the injuries to your shoulder and leg are around two days old, if I am reading the progress of your fever accurately. That would indicate to me that you have encountered the Martians more than once, that you are on your own not because you abandoned your comrades, but rather because you are the last one living. Am I correct?”

 

The man had read my situation so clearly that I was dumbfounded. How the deuce could this man whom I had never met before know my history?

 

He seemed to read the shock in my face. “I see from your expression that I am correct. You see all of this tells me that you are a loyal soldier, a good man. Which leads me inevitably to ask why you are aiming a gun at my head?”

 

I saw myself in that moment as this Sherlock Holmes must have seen me, a filthy, blood-soaked man, shaking and driven to the very edge of his reason, no better than a dangerous animal. It was this which snapped me back to some degree of sensibility, and I was able, slowly, to lower the revolver.

 

“Excellent, thank you.” Sherlock Holmes was still tentative, but seemed assured that he was not to be gunned down where he stood, and edged towards me once more. “May I ask your name?”

 

It hardy seemed to me that he needed me to tell him my name, as he appeared to know all other particulars about me. I tried to tell him this, but again found that the words were not forthcoming. As the tension in me eased, I became aware of the burning strain in the good leg that was keeping me upright. Indeed it was at the very edge of its strength. I looked down at it dumbly just as it gave out under me and sent me crashing to the earth, both knees cracking against the sooty parquet floor.

 

I had barely had time to cry out, for the pain in my wounded leg was intolerable, when Sherlock Holmes had looped an arm around my chest and heaved me upwards, guiding me towards a chair. “We really must find you a crutch.”

 

“W-watson.” I said, once I had seated myself in the proffered wooden chair. “C-c-captain John W-watson.”

 

He nodded, seeming pleased. "You are a captain. I have to admit that was supposition on my part. Now, I shall see to finding the medical supplies you came for, as you are really in no state to go traipsing about the hospital yourself. If you would only keep an eye on my glassware.” He pushed his box of carefully wrapped chemistry equipment towards me, seized his lamp, and quite abruptly left me sitting in the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looked me over once again with that sharp expression. “What are your feelings on the violin?”

Sherlock Holmes returned, brandishing an overstuffed satchel in one hand, in the other a crutch. He deposited both of these beside me before retrieving his box of stolen items, slinging it under one arm. He then thrust forward a hand for me to shake.  
   
“I wish you luck, Captain John Watson. Lord knows, all of us shall need it.” He made to leave the laboratory, the lamp swinging from his free hand, when he quite suddenly turned on his heel and asked “Where do you mean to go?”  
   
I did not know how to answer; I could not see myself moving much further than that chair, such was my exhaustion. I shook my head, then shrugged my shoulders. He looked me over once again with that sharp expression. “What are your feelings on the violin?”  
   
I squinted at him, trying to speculate if I were being played a fool. He looked amused, though not malevolently. He continued, “If I were to play the violin, would that annoy you?”  
   
It would depend entirely on how well he played it, I thought to myself, though I asked: “Now?”  
   
“No, not now.”A smile briefly crossed his face. “I am quite unprepared at this moment. What I mean to say is that I am setting up lodgings in Baker Street. However I will hardly ever be there, and it has just occurred to me that it would be useful to have somebody watch over the place while I am absent.”  
   
“W-where, where w-would you be going?”  
   
“Oh, working.”  
   
The man is mad, I thought. Quite mad.  
   
“In more normal circumstances,” he elaborated, “my trade is a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. I am hired usually by other detectives, to observe and then deduce their more difficult cases. Currently, however, I am employed to observe these Martians.” He stooped to pick up the satchel of medical supplies, having evidently decided that I was to accompany him. “It is fascinating study.”  
   
I had never before heard of a consulting detective, and had my suspicions that the title may have been created by Sherlock Holmes himself. He did, however, appear to be able to read me very easily, so there were some grounds to his claim. Who on earth would have hired him to make an observation of the Martians, though?  
   
“The British government,” said Holmes, though I was almost sure I had not said anything out loud. “I wire all my findings to…a representative, in Paris. There is a telegraph station in St Mary Le Grand which is still in order.”  
   
“It must be dangerous w-work.”  
   
“Indeed.” Sherlock Holmes replied. He looked down at me and in the yellow lamp-light I could see he looked positively enthusiastic. I was not convinced upon the sanity of this man who was to become my new companion, though under the current circumstances I was hardly placed to be the harshest of critics. I considered my alternative plans, of which I had none. Thus I relented, nodded, and pushed myself up onto the crutch.  
   
I found movement a good deal easier with support under my uninjured arm, but I was exhausted and weak, and progress was not swift. Holmes kept my pace, though he fidgeted and looked about him, obviously accustomed to moving a deal faster.  
   
I was lead to the Farringdon Street underground railway station, wherein Sherlock Holmes lowered himself onto the railway tracks and beckoned me to follow. I looked in despair at the drop to the tracks; I was beyond fatigued at this point, and briefly considered the option of simply laying myself down and refusing to move. While it was a plan that certainly had its charms in the short-term, a rather gruelling regime at the military academy had long ago, unfortunately, trained into me the ability to ignore that particular temptation. I followed.  
   
We walked for an interminable amount of time in perfect darkness, following the tunnel through the centre of the city. All I could see of Holmes for a time was the bobbing light of the lamp in the distance, almost out of sight before it stopped and Holmes waited for me in peevish silence.  
I do not know how I made it to Baker Street station. Holmes had constructed a staircase from wooden crates to climb from the tracks onto the platform. Instead of exiting the station, as I had presumed we would, I was instead guided through a door beside the ticketing booth.  
   
Here were the ticketing office, a storage room, a station-master’s office and a small water closet. There was a fine coating of black dust on the walls and floor, but I saw that most of the surfaces had been wiped clean.  
   
“It is safer underground, I find.” Said Holmes, watching me appraise his new lodgings. “Now that the black smoke has passed.”  
   
The station master’s office was not generous in size. In its previous life I could see that it had been host to just a fireplace, a desk and a bookcase, but someone, presumably Holmes, had dragged in a long bench and laid it out opposite the fireplace. It was laid with a thin mattress and pillow.  
   
This room was obviously where the fellow had been sleeping, and working as well by the look of it, as the desk was now host to an elaborate chemistry set and piles of sheaves of notepaper and notebooks. Some of these papers were tacked haphazardly to the wall. This went some way to prop up his claim that he had been employed these last few days, and indeed he had not been a slouch about it.  
   
Holmes gestured for me to sit on the makeshift bed. I lowered myself with a groan and could have wept with relief and exhaustion. My trials were not to be over this night, however, as Holmes stood in front of me with a bottle of antiseptic and a look of expectation.  
   
I conceded, shrugged the shirt off my injured shoulder and gave him a short and perfunctory instruction as to how to treat it. He was not a medical man and his technique not expert, but he was confident and methodical under my direction, and I found him a good study. While he set about peeling away the old bandages I asked him about the papers pinned to the wall and scattered across the desk.  
   
“My observations, so far. I have been following the Martians that have stayed in the city and recording their behaviour. I collate my notes here in an attempt to spot patterns.”  
   
“P-patterns?”  
   
“Habits, routines, weaknesses perhaps. We are in utter ignorance of these creatures. If we do not learn rapidly then we shall not survive, and nor should we deserve to.”  
   
With this, Holmes placed a gauze soaked in antiseptic on my shoulder and I exclaimed with a stream of words that cannot be transcribed herewith.  
   
“Interestingly,” said Holmes, composedly, “you curse without that stammer.”  
   
He re-dressed my arm, regarded his work with some satisfaction, then without another word turned his back on me and diverted his attentions to his chemistry set.  
   
I lay myself back on the bed and, sick with tiredness and unable to help myself, closed my eyes.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________

  
I did not wake for four days, or at least I was not fully lucid until the fourth day after I lay down on that bed. I am informed that I talked to myself through the height of my fever. I believe I may have raved. I have vague recollections of Holmes talking to me incessantly, apparently seeing no need for me, his conversation partner, to be conscious in order to use me as a sounding board for his theories.  
   
Indeed the first thing I became cognisant of after those four days, before I had even opened my eyes, was Holmes’ voice. He was talking to me, or rather using my presence as an excuse to talk aloud. He sat at the end of the bed, perched lightly at the edge.  
   
“…Do you know, I saw a man today, scavenging for food in a greengrocer’s. Two weeks ago I would have said he was a prosperous man, working in an established bank, in Liverpool Street by the particular cut of his jacket. There is a tailor…or rather, I should say, there was...  
   
“He was married, though I don’t think he saw much of his wife, and he owned at least two dogs. Now of course he’s squatting in a townhouse north of Primrose Hill with at least ten other people and they’ve eaten the dogs, I should imagine.

"Two weeks ago I would have been able to tell you this man’s life history but now, everybody is covered with the same damned grime. It’s rather a leveller. And in any case what is the usefulness of being able to tell if someone is a banker when banks could be a thing of the past? I stare down the barrel of the possibility that all my years of work…”  
   
I chose this moment to cut him off. “How,” I mumbled, eyes still closed, “could you po-possibly have known all that?”  
   
I felt the weight at the edge of the bed shift, and then a cool, gritty hand lay itself against my forehead.  
   
“Good man,” said Sherlock Holmes, quietly, “good man.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This isn't a war," said the artilleryman. "It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.” 
> 
> \- H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds

PART III

Sherlock Holmes had positioned himself in a desk chair in front of the empty fireplace, his fingers steepled, staring at the wall somewhere above my head. I had ownership of the bed still, but had propped myself up somewhat to view my companion from a vertical position.

“I had been concerning myself, Sunday last, with a case of some disappearing heirlooms. I had already supposed the cousin for the theft; his motivations were as simple as they were dull, but the method, ah! Removed from a locked chest in a locked room. I had been puzzling upon it for days in my rooms in Bloomsbury, quite to the exclusion of all else. Indeed, the first I knew of the invasion was when cries of alarm from the street began to disrupt my concentration in the early hours of Monday morning.”

“G-g-goog g-grief, man.” I croaked, in some disbelief. I chose to ignore at that moment that I had too, almost living on top of the site of the first landing, managed to let the incident pass me by for more than a day.

 “My dear Captain, before Saturday I did not even know such things as Mars existed, never mind that invaders from those parts were rampaging towards us from Surrey.”

“But how c-could you have b-b-been in such ignorance?” Said I. “Surely you were t-taught the of the solar system at school? The movement of the sun and the p-p-planets?”

“Possibly,” said Holmes with an abstracted expression, “but I would have worked to have forgotten it.” He flicked a long boned hand as if to shoo something away. “I cannot concern myself with irrelevant facts, and up to a week ago the structure of the Universe outside of our own particular sphere has been of no use to me. Since then, of course, I have been giving myself an education.” He reached across to pluck a book from the writing desk. _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_ was printed on the cover in silver foil.

“We digress.” Holmes balanced the book on one knee and once again steepled his fingers. “I was snapped out of my reverie, the locked chest in the locked room, by sounds of panic from the road outside my rooms. I ran to the window and threw it open, to see what appeared to be half of London on the move. Taking a note of the time and was surprised to see it was 3 o’clock in the morning. I put on my coat and hat and rushed from the front door, and after attempting to stop and question a few of the folk, not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, I had a piece of paper pressed into my hand by a middle-aged widower, hurrying past. I suppose you saw the notice issued by the government commanding an entire metropolis to flee?”

I nodded my head.

“Foolish. I could see the foolishness at the time and yet I did not know what we were supposed to be running from. I worked my way upstream of the crowds to the newspaper seller’s stall where I found a few abandoned papers still on the floor behind the counter. I spent possibly one of the most surreal hours of my life there, poring over hastily-written newspaper articles, gathering all the data available, hidden behind the counter from hoards of frightened Londoners streaming up Euston Road.

“I supposed, at this point, that I would have to take flight with the rest of the population. I returned to my rooms to gather the provisions I could, but upon arriving home I found my front door open. I assumed I was being pillaged, and readied myself to accost an intruder.”

Holmes laughed. “Imagine my surprise on discovering my own brother standing in the living room!”

“Your  brother?” I asked, not entirely understanding the amazement he should display at the discovery that his brother had sought him out at a time of crisis.

“’For a moment I had presumed you had left’” Said Holmes in what must have been an imitation of his brother. “’But of course you are still here, as I had predicted you would be.’”

At this, Holmes pulled a sour face at me.

“You must understand that my brother is brilliant, maybe even more so than myself, but he is not easily roused into action. I should have expected a messenger rather than himself in person. Ah, but you shake your head?”

“These are extraordinary times; should we not expect extraordinary behaviour?”

“I find that in extraordinary times people will revert to type. My brother has more than enough mental capacity to manage extraordinary times but it is his way to do so with as little physical exertion as possible. Thus I deduced that whatever he had to impart to me, it was something much greater than enquiries as to my welfare.”

I nodded, following his meaning. “It was he that g-gave you the t-t-task to observe the aliens, on behalf of the g-g-g…”

“…On that day, Captain, I believe he _was_ the British Government… ‘I assume by now you have heard of the black smoke?’” He once again affected the voice of his brother. Though I had nothing to compare it to, his voice, expression and manner in which he held himself gave the impression of a heavy, sedate man, his own manner absolutely subsumed into the portrait. It demonstrated his skill as an actor and from that I could assume his cleverness for mimicry. “‘You may not have heard that although it is rapid-moving, it rises to no more than 50 feet. The top of a relatively tall townhouse should be high enough to avoid it.’

“I did not know that, I told him. It was a piece of information withheld from most, it would appear. ‘If we had the men’, my brother said, ‘we would spread the word, of course, but Fleet Street, Scotland Yard, the Houses of Parliament, they all flee with the rest. The infrastructure of the whole city has quite fallen apart.’ He sighed as if the whole thing were a tedious misfortune. ‘I have a ship waiting on the Thames to take me to Paris where I shall attempt to rally what is left of the ruling establishment. In my absence I shall need eyes and ears in London. What a benefit it is, then, to be related to the sharpest eyes and ears in the city’.

“I quickly realised his proposition, and gave my assent that I was privileged to serve Queen and country, though to be quite honest it was more the scientific possibilities of studying the creatures that excited me.

“‘I have taken the liberty of drawing up a few instructions.’ He handed me this letter.”

Holmes the younger slipped a tattered sheaf from the pages of _The Dynamics of an Asteroid_ and held it out to me, as his brother must have to him, then he continued: “‘Observe all you can of these creatures without, for God’s sake, getting yourself killed. Find a way of contacting me in Paris. I shall be staying at l’Hotel du Triomphe  in the 8 th Arrondissement, all being well. Now, if you will excuse me.’ We exchanged a few brief pleasantries and he left.

“Alone once more I checked the building to find it quite empty. I took a few provisions to the attic room, where I read the letter.” Holmes now gestured at me to read.

I have this letter with me still, one of the few things of ours which survived that time. I transcribe it herewith;

_My dear Sherlock,_

_I would not have assigned this task to you had I not believed all of us, our lives, our very mode of existence, to be in the very gravest peril. We know little to nothing of these creatures, but I include copies of all we possess. The astronomer who reported curious explosions on the surface of Mars some months back was one of the creatures’ first victims on Horsell Common. We recovered his work but found little of use for our current predicament. That is, nothing which we could use against them._

_This is where I will require your services, Sherlock. Our knowledge of these things is so scant that we cannot disregard anything as irrelevant. I therefore commission you to conduct a full observational study. If they stay in London then stay with them. If they travel then keep pace as well as you can. Leave no detail unreported._

_I suggest telegraph as your most likeliest option to relay information. Do not linger in hopes of a response and do not put yourself in any danger that could be regarded as unnecessary. Please endeavour to remember your value to us alive as opposed to dead._

_We must trust that Paris does not fall. If it does then I shall retreat to Moscow. I will consider the best way to contact you should this occasion arrive. Pray it does not._

_Yours_

_Mycroft_

I folded the letter and handed it back to Holmes.

 He regarded it for a moment. “Quite patronising, but that is the right of an older brother, I suppose.” It was carefully folded and pressed once more between the pages of the book.

“Have you heard anything from P-p-pa..Paris?”

Holmes shook his head. “I stay no longer than necessary. If they do reply then there is nobody at the station at this end to receive it.”

“So you have no id-d-d…idea if anyone is p-picking up your messages?”

“Absolutely none.”

“The whole continent could have fallen.”

Holmes nodded, perfunctorily. “One cannot give in to despairing, though. Or worry on the futility of one’s actions. The work is useful, and I shall continue with it for as long as it is required or as long as I am able. One never suffered by knowing too much about one’s enemy.”

* * *

When I next woke I found myself alone in the ticketmaster’s office, and after several aborted attempts I rose from the bed and hobbled, with the aid of the crutch, to the water closet. I was sore and stiff; my shoulder and leg cried protest at the cruel treatment. Once I had arrived I was faced with my reflection in a mirror for the first time in days and I was able to observe the changes that had been wrought upon me in less than a fortnight. I was abominably dirty and had a good growth of untrimmed beard, but looking beyond these I could see the terrible gauntness of my face and the sunkenness of my eyes. Here I could see the traces of dark and white dust along with the innumerable small scratches that Holmes had been able to read my movements from.

I ran a tap and attempted to wash my face. Although still grey in colour at least I less resembled the prehistoric horror I had before.

I next looked at my shoulder, peeling back the bandages and gauze below my collarbone to examine the exit wound. It was still inflamed from the infection, but even through that I could see the extent of the damage. I was familiar with such injuries but the incongruity of seeing one on myself took me quite by surprise, and I took a moment to sit and recover my reeling head. I covered up the wound, uncomfortable with the sight of it.

I knew what such a wound meant. My career as a surgeon required a steadiness and delicacy of touch. My role of soldier depended on my able-bodiedness. I could see that this damage to muscle and nerves would most probably rob me of both. I sat for a while further, locked in the water closet, my good hand gripping at the edge of the sink.

* * *

I still vividly remember the sweltering heat of that summer, a good part of which I spent hidden away in those airless, stifling rooms. There were small windows far above our heads, and Holmes once or twice attempted to prise them open but they had rusted themselves shut. We grew fractious and distracted in the heat.

In an attempt to assist Sherlock Holmes in his work, beyond the perfunctory role of guard dog while he disappeared into London above, I mastered the old Remington typewriter that had been shoved under the bench to make room. Sat on the floor, I one-handedly typed out my experiences from the last few days, and was satisfied to have two to three more sheafs of my recollections sat on the desk for Holmes’ return each day.

During the nights we would light candles to see by. The lightbulbs were useless; the electricity stopped working a few days after the invasion, and a fire would produce smoke and lead to our detection. Besides the weather was far too warm to even countenance it if we could. Thus it was in dim, old-fashioned candlelight that Holmes would read my efforts.

“The detail is good…” said Holmes, one evening, riffling through the sum of my work thus far. “Where I can find it. Much of the detail is superfluous. You write as if composing a penny romance, Captain.”

I flushed with embarrassment and more than a little annoyance that my efforts had been criticised in such an abrupt way. Though I would not admit it, I had written the words in the hope that he would be pleased.

“Data,” said Holmes. “Facts. If possible please try to extract them from the surrounding redundant detail.”

“The two are tied together inextricably, I’m afraid.” With a sullen look I turned back to my one-handed battering of the ill-used Remington, and out of the corner of my eye saw Sherlock Holmes shake his head despairingly.

“So be it. It is more useful to me than nothing at all, I suppose.”

This was not the end of his criticisms however; a few days later I found myself confronted again by Holmes who, on reading through my day’s typing, reeled round in his chair and fluttered them in his hand.

“Watson, your detail of the confrontation with the Martian at St Paul’s is skeletal – it is…” He stopped and scanned the papers. “…half a paragraph, at best. I must press you to re-write the episode in more detail.”

“You have the bare facts”, said I, not looking up from the Remington.

“Indeed they are bare.  A blow-by-blow account of its actions would be of good use to me.”

When I did not answer, he propelled himself on his wheeled chair past the scant yard that separated us and bent forwards, casting shadow over my paper.

“You mention that the Martian creature fed on the orderly, Murray, but you do not say _how_.”

“I don’t remember.” I was tense, my temper already fraying. I would not discuss this.

“Watson, this is the first I have heard of the Martians seeking sustenance, and it is from a human being.  Even you must understand that it is absolutely imperative that you tell me everything that you can remember. Every…”

I kicked the Remington across the floor; its impact against the fireplace grate sent out a ringing clamour.

 “I DON’T...”

Even while I cried out I was surprised at my own outburst, the violence of it. I have no idea what else I would have said if Sherlock Holmes had not at that moment landed upon me and clamped a hand across my mouth. “Hush”, he rasped, and in that moment I realised the depth of my own stupidity. He looked towards the ceiling, his almost cat-like senses straining to pick up on any indication that we, that I, had been heard.

My eyes followed his gaze upwards, and I, too, listened.

‘UUUU-LAAAH’ the echoes of the Martian call rolled through the station. We both flinched. Holmes twisted his head this way and that, triangulating where it had come from, how far away - half way across town? Regents’ Park? Had it been standing above us at the time of my outburst?

We were both huddled on the floor, his hand still firmly pressed against my mouth. We must have stayed like that for ten minutes or more, frozen in position. My heart thundered in my chest, loud enough that Holmes must have been able to hear.

Then, I felt his eyes turn to me once more. He raised a finger to his lips, slowly pulling his hand away from me. I barely moved while he slowly pulled himself to his feet and subtly, silently, padded to the door to glance outside.

 After a couple of minutes, satisfied, he quietly closed the door and rested his forehead against it, exhaling.

The moment had passed, and we had not been detected.

I leant back against the bench and closed my eyes.

“I apologise,” Holmes said, muffled by the door.

I huffed a laugh, which sounded more small and shaken than I would have preferred. “A fine thing that I should almost d-doom us both and you ap-p-pologise for it.”

“You were distressed. I should not have pressed the matter.”

I braced my hand against the bench and pushed myself up onto my aching legs. “I should leave.”

Holmes turned to look at me, still leant against the door and looking all of a sudden as weary as I felt. “I would rather you didn’t.”

“That’s very p-p-polite…”

“It isn’t, I assure you.”

I shook my head, reached for my crutch and hobbled towards the door. Holmes, still stood in front of the door, held out a hand to block my passage.

“Please,” he said, quite honestly and I, being a coward, allowed myself to be bustled back to the bench where we sat for some hours in shaken silence. Once or twice the Martian machines would sound somewhere in the distance and I would reach out in the darkness and grip Holmes’ arm.

* * *

After that long night we returned to our routine, and things fell back to their usual pattern. A few evenings later Holmes returned with a can of peaches that he had ‘found on his travels’, which I surmised meant he had taken to breaking into abandoned houses and rummaging through larders. Indeed it was a rare find; we were becoming accustomed to hunger.

In the morning, when we had both finished breakfasting on the remains of the peaches, Holmes sifted peevishly through the collapsing piles of papers on his desk.

“What are you looking for?” I asked from my customary position on the bench.

“The Wells book,” Holmes answered, half buried in a drawer of newspapers.

I had last seen it on the back of the desk. Having an idea of its trajectory I peered into the crack between the desk and the wall, then fished out the book from its hiding place with my crutch, handing it to Holmes who immediately began to flick through its pages. “You know I rather think it may be time to invest in a filing system,” I said, nodding towards the desk, where Holmes’ papers had begun to pile up against his chemistry set like a snow bank.

“An excellent idea,” said Holmes, snapping the book shut. “Will you see to it?”

I had finished typing my recollections for Holmes the day before, and feeling a little stronger, I could not protest that the request was unreasonable. Looking upon the chaos that reigned on the desk I could not say either that it filled my heart with joy. It surprised me that a man such as Holmes, with a mind so organised and so sharp, could commit to such a disordered state of living. I conceded with a sigh: “Yes, I suppose.”

Holmes put the book down on the desk, where it slid upon some notes before coming to a rest. “I shall be heading out for the afternoon. Did you need me to change your bandages before I leave?”

I shook my head. “No, I should be able to take care of it myself, I think.” My shoulder was healing badly, and still required the occasional attention.

Holmes nodded. “How is progress?”

“Some sensation returning to the hand and the arm, however sporadic. Even with the best care in the world my chances at a full recovery would have been feeble. The infection has certainly done its share of damage.

“Still,” I mused to myself, “an infection from this country I would have had some natural immunity against. I would have supposed that if I had been injured overseas the foreign bacteria would have most likely done me in.”

Holmes furrowed his brow in thought for a moment, then turned to me. “What was that?”

“Oh, one of the first things you learn in army doctoring, old cock, the further abroad you are the more strange and dangerous the diseases. The body’s much less likely to have run across them before, and there’s more of a job of it to fight them off.”

Holmes looked electrified. “The further abroad…” He paced the room, hands steepled, which was his custom when deep in thought. “And if,” he said quietly, “for example, you were to have come from Mars…”

I nodded, slowly, following his train of thought. “Then you would be very vulnerable indeed.”

Holmes continued his pacing. “Yes, yes of course…”

I shook my head. “Holmes, their technology is years in advance to our own. It stands to rights their medical science would be as well. We can presume they would have prepared for that.”

He stopped pacing, and drummed his long hands against the desk. “Still, an interesting line of inquiry, is it not?”

It was not until that moment that I saw him grasp so vividly on such a small, elusive possibility of vulnerability that I realised how futile Holmes’ search had been for a chink in the Martians’ armour. I did not have the heart to argue with him.

“Indeed it is.”

Holmes nodded distractedly. “I shall write it up later. For now I’ll leave you to battle with my desk.” He put on his filthy jacket and, wiping up some of the grime from the floor, smeared it over his face. “How do I look?” He asked with a flourish.

“Awful,” I answered.

Holmes looked satisfied and swept out of the room.

Usually I could rely on Holmes to be gone for four hours or more on his reconnaissance trips. Thus I began in earnest my attempt to restore some kind of order to the wilderness of Holmes’ work space, believing I could make some real progress by the time he returned. Though I would keep it to myself to save us both the embarrassment, I was grateful for the opportunity to be useful to Holmes.

By late evening the papers and books had been sorted into loose piles, and I had just lit a candle with which to work by in the dimming light. It was then I heard the noise of footsteps rattling down the stairs to the station. It was so unlike Holmes’ noiseless movements that I opened the bottom drawer of the desk and grasped my revolver, suspecting an intruder.

“ _WATSON_.”

So it was Holmes, but the distress in his voice was evident. He was running through the station at breakneck speed. It was then I realised I was hearing the footsteps of not one, but two people.

I raised myself from my chair in time to hear two shots from a handgun.

I ignored my crutch and hobbled frantically to the door, down the corridor to the entrance to the station proper. A man had followed Holmes into the station, ragged and wild-eyed in the dim light, waving a gun in the air violently to and fro. Holmes, I could see, had leapt behind a solid wooden stair banister, and quite hidden in shadow from the mad-man’s view.

“Come out. Come out you cur.” The man, middle aged and gaunt, bare-headed and wearing little more than shirtsleeves, whirled around. “You dog. _I can see what you are_.” He whispered.

The man spat when he talked, had completely parted with his reason.  He raised his gun and let two shots off into the ceiling. He looked about him again with his red, wide eyes as the loosened plaster dust fell gently onto his bald pate.

It was far too much noise; we would attract the attention of any Martians in the surrounding areas a matter of minutes, if we had not already. He would have to be silenced quickly, and cleanly. It was impossible to tell how many bullets he had left in that small handgun so approaching him was out of the question. The realisation of what would have to be done sat heavily in my chest, and I cocked my own revolver in preparation.

He was alerted to my presence and raised his gun, though not in time to stop me firing the first shot. It was a clean shot, through the chest, though it was not the immediate kill that had been my intention. Unwilling to watch him suffer any longer than was necessary, I shot again. This time he was silenced.

Holmes peered over the top of the banister at the small pile of rags lying in the middle of the station.

“The Martians…” I whispered.

Holmes shook his head. “None of the tripods are abroad, as far as I can see.”

He walked over to the body and crouched by its side. “I had found a couple of young street-arabs crossing the Marylebone Road and was in the middle of asking what they had seen of the Martians of late when this gentleman accosted us from the Great Central Hotel. The two young urchins disappeared like smoke of course and I, considerably older and slower, made easier quarry.”

Holmes looked at me. “I am sorry to have led him to our door, but you see I knew you had the revolver. I had meant to get it myself…” He stood. “Though I would not have made as good a job of it.”

“Holmes…” I warned in quiet admonishment. I did not wish to be praised for my handiwork.

Holmes sighed. “Poor devil. He would have been a publican in his former life; note the way he rolls up his sleeves…”

I did not want to note anything of the sort. Instead I turned my back on Holmes mid-sentence, and walked, lurched away rather, towards the descending stairs.

 I was unclear where I was headed, I knew merely that if I lingered in that central terminal with its grim tableau and listen to Holmes talk of the dead man in that detached tone of his then the frustration swelling in my chest would burst forth, and we would have one more madman with a gun to see to. Thus I took the next flight of stairs downwards to a platform.

Light still filtered in weakly from the high windows. The station’s stillness and quietude was quite alien to its usual characteristic of bustle. The place has been empty long enough that it had started taking on the air of abandonment.

 In answer to my protesting leg I sat myself heavily on a bench on the platform, tucked away in one of the alcoves beneath a window. The melancholy atmosphere did nothing to alleviate my mood. I cursed myself for what seemed to be, once again, an uncharacteristic lack of control. I had never been quick to anger but recently I had been exhibiting the hair-trigger temper of a hysteric. A nervous tension bubbled in my chest and I forced myself to bite down upon it. I closed my eyes firmly, took a long, slow breath of air and some measure of sensibility that still remained in me quelled the rising emotion. The sensation left as soon as it arrived and left in its wake instead a bone-deep weariness.

In truth I was probably suffering exhaustion. The both of us had been in a state of high alert for weeks. Holmes, for his part, seemed to thrive on it. I feared I was deteriorating under the strain.

The old man had been starving, frightened and mad, and I had made the calculated decision to kill him. I wondered that I could have made the decision so calmly, and yet I had. It had all seemed so perfectly logical at the time; it was only now, after the fact, that doubt had started to creep in, much too late to be of any use.

Right or wrong, it was a decision that would have to be lived with. I turned these thoughts over and over in my mind for some time, long after the last of the light had completely disappeared from the high windows, and I continued to come to the same unsatisfying conclusion.

The cold had begun to nip at my hands and face. Holmes had not come to look for me; I imagined he was weary of my bad humour and grateful for the reprieve. I moved my leg to test it, to see if it would bear my weight on the long battle back up the stairs, and the leg thanked my efforts by seizing into cramp. I stretched and rubbed the offending thigh muscle, quite distracted from anything else.  It was only a few minutes after, when the tension began to release, did I notice something that I would have been conscious to otherwise.

A light.

It was the faintest glow of a light somewhere deeper within the tunnel, in the gloom the luminescence was striking - not the yellowish colour of the lamp but a harsh, phosphorescent white. Then I heard a rhythmic clunk, squeal, scrape of metal upon metal, a steady rumble of motors.

My first thought was to flee, but I had no time to drag myself up the stairs, not without risk of being caught out in the open. I thought of rats, surprised by the sudden flick of a light switch, and I felt very vulnerable and foolish in that moment. I very nearly despaired. With what little sense I had left I pressed myself into the corner of the alcove, facing away from the tunnel.

I drew my gun from my trouser pocket and held it against my chest, hammer cocked. I pushed myself flat against the brick, hoping to melt into the shadows. I held myself still, so I barely even breathed. My shallow breaths seemed to echo throughout the empty platform as the light grew brighter, the noises louder. The shadows became more pitted and pronounced, lurching with the approach of whatever was about to emerge from the tunnel.

A sheen of sweat covered my brow and top lip, but for once my hand was steady, though it clutched the gun so tightly to my chest that I could feel the metal biting into the skin of my palm.  From this distance away I could hear the pistons hiss.

It emerged from the tunnel, and though I wanted to close my eyes (the simple instinct of a child who does not want to be seen) I forced myself to look.

It is difficult to describe to someone who has never seen these machines how alive they looked. The movements of the legs that dragged the main body of the machine through the tunnel were fluid, interconnected. It dipped a little with the rise and fall of the legs, but it had a grace you associate with the natural. There was no lurching, none of the strange stopping and starting of robotic movement. If it were not for the deafening roar and grind of its internal motors you would have sworn some monstrosity that had dragged itself upwards from the bowels of hell and found itself in the London Underground system.

Four blueish-white spotlights on its back rotated around the platform. In a moment one would settle on me, and I knew I would have the chance to shoot once and probably no more than that. I stretched out my arm, aiming to what I suspected to be the cockpit. My hand did not waver.

The machine proceeded, pulling itself further along the track. The four blazing spotlights pointed forward, illumination the tunnel in front of it. It entered the tunnel once more and was gone. I was once again quite alone in the dark.

I lowered my arm and, as I remember, I was quite unable to decide what I should do next, or indeed put together a coherent thought. It was Holmes that snapped me out of my daze, hissing at me from a location somewhere near the stair case.

“ _Watson_.”

I started, but could not pull my wits together to respond in kind.

“ _Watson_.” His voice was sharp edged with anger or worry.

I shifted and braced myself against the wall, ready to step out and make myself known to Holmes. I have mentioned before that his senses are very keen in the dark, and before I had even pushed myself away from the wall he had found me, and had wrapped a strong hand around my arm.

“Good, excellent.” He looked me over and seemed satisfied that I had not been hurt. “Easy now, old man. Quite enough incidents for one day, don’t you think?” He sounded practically giddy. I would have cuffed him round the ear there and then if I had the strength. As it was he looped my arm round his neck and we walked together out of the platform.

“It would appear that the tunnels are no longer safe.” Half-way up the stairs Holmes looked over my shoulder and back down to the platform. “It seems, my dear Watson, that the walls are closing in.”


End file.
